Chernow Ron

   Ronald Chernow  is an American writer, journalist, historian, and biographer. He has written bestselling and award-winning biographies of historical figures from the world of business, finance, and American politics.

   An honors graduate of Yale and Cambridge, Ron Chernow is one of the most distinguished commentators on politics, business, and finance in America today. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has hailed him as “one of the preeminent biographers of his generation” and Fortune magazine has dubbed him “America’s best business biographer.”

   In 1990, Chernow published his first book, The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance, which traces the history of four generations of the J.P. Morgan financial empire. The reviewer for The New York Times Book Review said, “As a portrait of finance, politics and the world of avarice and ambition on Wall Street, the book has the movement and tension of an epic novel. It is, quite simply, a tour de force.” The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance was honored with the National Book Award for Nonfiction.

   In 1993, Chernow published The Warburgs: The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family, which was awarded the Columbia Business School's George S. Eccles Prize for Excellence in Economic Writing. It was additionally named as one of the year's ten best works by the American Library Association and a Notable Book by The New York Times.

   Chernow's 1997 collection of essays, The Death of the Banker, touched upon his earlier writings and chronicled “the decline and fall of the great financial dynasties and the triumph of the small investor”.

   In 1998, Chernow published Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., which was selected by Time Magazine and The New York Times as one of the year's ten best books. The book reflected Chernow's continued interest in financial history, especially when shaped by compelling and influential individuals. It remained on “The New York Times Best Seller list” for 16 weeks. Time Magazine named the book as “one of the great American biographies”.

   In 2004, Chernow wrote Alexander Hamilton. Excerpted by Business Week and chosen as the main selection of both the Book-of-the-Month Club and the History Book Club, the book spent three months on the New York Times bestseller list and was the first recipient of the George Washington Book Prize for the year’s best book about the founding era. In 2015, the biography was adapted into an off-Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda (In The Heights). It closed, but is reopening on Broadway due to popularity.

   Chernow's 904-page Washington: A Life was released on October 5, 2010. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the American History Book Prize.

   In 2011, Chernow signed a deal to write a comprehensive biography on Ulysses S. Grant. Chernow explained his transition from writing about George Washington to Grant: “Makes some sense as progression. Towering general of Revolution to towering general of Civil War. Both two-term presidents, though with very different results.”

   Chernow lives in Brooklyn, New York.